Every now and then, you walk out of a theater so blown away by the show, you can’t imagine anything better. Such was the case at People’s Light where I saw “Songs for Nobodies.” I had known that one woman was to portray Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Billy Holiday, Edith Piaf, and Maria Callas, singing some of their songs, but I wasn’t prepared for the brilliant script by Joanna Murray-Smith or the commanding performance by Bethany Thomas.

            The show is much more than song. It begins with a toilet attendant reflecting on the nature of happiness. Is it real? Do you only realize it in retrospect? She is bemoaning the desertion of her husband when Judy Garland enters, after taking a break from her concert. They connect and soon, she is on the stage with Garland. And as we hear Garland sing “Come Rain or Come Shine,” we are reminded that life is “just one of those things” and that “days may be cloudy or sunny.”

            The second sequence is also about destiny. We meet Patsy Cline who sings “Stand by Your Man” even though “you’ll have bad times,” even though “you don’t understand.” But playwright Murray-Smith gives us so much more than the song. We learn that the last concert Cline sang was a benefit concert for an esteemed disc jockey who’d just died. Sadly, in her haste to leave Kansas City to get back to her young children, Cline died in a plane crash. She was 30 years old.

            We learn about Billie Holiday by a writer who wants to escape from the fashion pages to write seriously. After pleading with her editor at The New York Times, she is given the opportunity to write an 800 word essay interviewing Holiday. The great jazz singer, Holiday who at one point, after not responding to questions, asks the writer “what do happy people sing about?” She then sings the song that made her famous, “Strange Fruit,” a song banned in many places as it talks of “Black bodies swinging… from poplar trees.”

            There are stories about French singer Edith Piaf before we hear her sing “Non, je ne regrette rien.” (No, I regret nothing). Despite remaining in France during the Nazi occupation, she managed to help others escape. At 4’8”, her powerful voice was legendary.

            Maria Callas is the last of the divas in this 1:40 play. A great operatis soprano, Americans know her better as the woman left by Aristotle Onassis to court and marry Jacqueline Kennedy.  Callas too has a story as we learn of her shortened career. Here, she sings an aria from Verdi’s Tosca about a woman whose beloved, faces torture and execution.

            From the five “nobodies” that tell most of the story, to the five extraordinary vocalists, Bethany Thomas does it all. Close your eyes and you hear the operatic voice of one, the power of another, and softness of another. Her range is breath-taking. You would swear that you are hearing the original artists. She is amazing and is worth the price of admission alone.

            I never enjoyed learning so much as Thomas portrays the nobodies while they interact with the singers and inform us of their lives. Who’d have thought that five vignettes could do so much!

            After playing in Chicago at the Northlight Theatre where it got rave reviews early in 2020, the play was scheduled to be on the People’s Light stage that summer, but covid changed everything. Now, with Thomas and director Rob Lindley, they are presenting the show that was in Chicago, on the Malvern stage.

“Songs for Nobodies” by Joanna Murray-Smith at People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, PA 19355, 610-644-3500,  peopleslight.org   Thru May 21, 2023

            When you see the silly poster outside the show that is currently running at the Wilma Theater, it is easy to think that this new play by Nathan Alan Davis is little more than fluff. Nothing could be farther from the truth. “Eternal Life Part 1” has many funny moments, but it is so much than that. It is a profound story, centering on a family, but dealing with many of the existential questions of life.

            The play begins simply. An affluent couple are debating whether or not to keep the new home they’ve just bought and whether to settle there or in one of their other homes.  We see the conflict between the perfectionist husband and the wife who wants to be more rooted, lest she be forgotten. She says she wants to be immortal. It is the beginning of a discussion on what the point of life is and of one’s destiny.

            If it sounds too intellectual, it’s not- it’s very real… except when the other major character is present, which is most of the time. That character is a goose! Yes, a goose who wanders about, first watching the action, but then, interacting with the people. She was there when the couple arrived and remains through the years. First, wandering about the yard, then taken in as a pet, she becomes part of the family. Sarah Gliko brilliantly portrays this feathered bird as it moves about the scenes and into the audience. She is mesmerizing.

            The nameless couple (played by Jenn Kidwell and Steven Rishard) agrees early on to have a child. We observe them at different stages as the difficult child (Brandon J. Pierce) becomes an obnoxious adolescent, then a more mature college student. Whiny as he is, the scenes are very funny but realistically honest. The goose is observing with us.

            Then they are the snowflakes- the father snowflake, the mother snowflake, and the child snowflake. They represent the family. Or are they the family? Sounds confusing? It’s actually very simple, very basic and we can decide for ourselves.  The snowflake can land anywhere… or can it.  It has so its own destiny, a metaphor for what can happen to any of the characters, to any of us.  

            Feelings, yearnings, fears, love, frustration- they are all packed  into this most non-linear, almost surrealistic play. I will not begin to say I understood all that was going on, what with the goose and the snowflakes, but I thoroughly enjoyed what I was watching, and didn’t care. It worked in a way I’ve not experienced before in the theater. Oh yes, the cast was outstanding and the direction by Morgan Green was superb! It’s a chance to go to the theater and let go.

“Eternal Life Part 1” by Nathan Alan Davis at The Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, 215-546-7824  www.wilmatheater.org   thru April 30, 2023

            Billie Holiday, who died in 1959 at the age of 44, is an icon in the music world. With her voice and unique style, she gave powerful and sensual representation to songs she sang during the height of the jazz age. Lanie Robertson has created in 90 minutes, a powerful play with some of Holiday’s greatest hits but also with poignant moments in Holiday’s life in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.” Produced in 1986, it has appeared across the country for decades and has won numerous awards. It is now on the stage at Philadelphia Theatre Company.

            The play takes place in an old South Philly bar, a few months before Billie’s death. She is accompanied by Jimmy Powers (Will Brock) on the piano. She is banned from performing in New York because of a drug conviction. Holiday (Laurin Talese) is a drug addict and alcoholic, consuming alcohol throughout her performance. Between the songs, she tells us her story.

            Billie’s idols were Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong and she sang along with them at home as the victrola played. Smith died the year Holiday married for the first time- at sixteen. Her husband, she tells us, was her first and her worst. He got her hooked on drugs. But he didn’t give her what she wanted most, a child.

There were many more stories and anecdotes, including when she traveled with Artie Shaw and his band (the first Black woman to work with a white band) Shaw had to pay extra for her to eat in the restaurant but only in the kitchen. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear Talese clearly as she often talked softly and rapidly, often mumbling, and though I was sitting a stone’s throw from the intimate stage, I missed much.

            Talese does have a lovely voice and it is wonderful listening to the songs Holiday made famous like  “I Wonder Where Love Has Gone, What a Little Moonlight Can Do, Crazy He Calls Me,” and the legendary song, “Strange Fruit,” about a lynching in the south. Billie  often got into trouble for singing that song but insisted on singing it to make sure the story was told. However, Talese’s voice did not resemble that of Holiday’s, which had a rugged, yet intimate feel.

            How much does an actor have to resemble and perform like the person she is portraying? I ask myself that question whenever I see a one-person show about someone famous who we remember. Talese does a credible job, but I never felt like she was Billie Holiday. But then again, who can be Billie Holiday?

            Still, the feeling that scenic and lighting designer Thom Weaver has created of a bar in S. Philly with the audience right there beside the stage is outstanding. And the accompaniment of Music Director Will Brock who plays for Holiday is perfect. A few words of advice- one for the director, Jeffrey L. Page and one for the audience. Slow the rhythm and increase the volume of his star. And if you plan to attend, sit at one of the tables up close to make sure you hear it all.

“Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill ” by Lanie Robertson at Philadelphia Theatre Company, Suzanne Roberts  Theatre, 480 S. Broad St., Phila., PA 19146, 215-985-0420, www.philatheatreco.org Thru April 30, 2023.

August Wilson was an African-American playwright who chronicled life in the Black Pittsburgh community, in which he grew up, in a series of ten plays . Two of them, “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson,” won the Pulitzer Prize. Each play is about another decade of the 20^th century, with “Radio Golf” taking place in the 1990’s. It premiered in 2005, the year Wilson died. It is an extraordinary play getting an outstanding production at The Arden Theatre Company.

            The play revolves around Harmond Wilks, a Harvard educated man, who inherited his father’s real estate agency- he is also seeking to become Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor. He is about to embark on redeveloping the Hill District, an area that has fallen on hard times. There are plans for a 10-story high rise with 180 apartments. There are also deals in the making that will include a Whole Foods, a Starbucks, a Barnes & Noble, and a golf driving range. Only an old abandoned house remains on the property and is scheduled for demolition… until an old man appears, who is painting the house.

            While this is a story about progress versus tradition, it is also a tale of what it means to be an African-American at the end of the 20th century. Two of the other four characters in the play, Wilks’s wife Mame and his friend Roosevelt, seek to rise in the world through their connections with white politicians and businessmen. She hopes to get an important job and he wants to connect with a shady, but rich investor, to get a share in the purchase of a radio station at less than market value because he would qualify for the minority tax incentive.

            On the other side are Sterling Johnson and Joseph Barlow. Johnson, also an old friend of Wilks, is a brutish guy who is often on the wrong side of the law. He brags that once he robbed a bank just to see what it was like to have some money. He is an independent construction worker who constantly challenges Wilks while he seeks work from his friend.

            The final character we meet is Joseph Barlow, the old man who is painting the house that is about to be torn down. He has a strange and mysterious past. He clearly seems crazy. But is he? He claims that it is his house and he is painting it for his daughter, though no one has lived there for years and it had been bought by Wilks at a sheriff’s sale.

One significant symbol in the play and in Wilks’s life is golf. He has a little putting green in the office. His friend Roosevelt also loves golf. Wilks hangs a picture of Tiger Woods on the wall beside the one of Martin Luther King Jr., that he’d put up earlier. Later, the oddball Barlow,  though he has no interest in golf, grabs and pockets a golf ball when no one is looking.

Will a golf driving range replace the old football field? Will a modern apartment building replace the blight in the area? Will the house at 1839 Wylie be torn down?

That is the essence of the story, but Wilson’s play is far more than story. His characters are what make this a a must-see play. The greediness of Mame and Roosevelt, the crudeness of Johnson, and Barlow’s powerful  drive to survive in an alien world-  Wilks must figure out the best course. Then, there is  the wonderful humor Wilson injects throughout the play in the many riveting stories. But what makes the play even greater is the unsaid larger picture.

How does a Black person differ from a Negro in the year 1997? It is reminiscent of the contrasts between King and Malcolm X, decades earlier. This time, Hammond Wilks is at the center of a personal dilemma.  He is an American and proud of it. But what does that mean?

“Radio Golf”  is the fifth August Wilson play produced by The Arden Theatre Company. It was one I was not familiar with. It is exquisitely directed by Kash Goins with an  extraordinary ensemble. I can’t wait for the next one.

“Radio Golf” by August Wilson.  Thru April 16, 2023.   Arden Theatre, 40 N. 2^nd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106, ardentheatre.org  215-922-1122.

Felix Artifex is a third rate theater producer who is trying to secure a Broadway production for what could be the biggest deal of his career. He has some financing from an unusual source and is trying to secure a contract with a popular movie star to be in the play about the French Revolution, written by a young, unknown playwright. “Mistakes Were Made” by Craig Wright,  which takes place in Felix’s office, consists of 75 minutes  of phone calls to and from everyone- from his ex-wife and his co-producer to the playwright, the star, and others ,while his unseen secretary, Esther, takes the calls and relays the information to Felix.

Also in the office is Denise, the large fish in a tank by the wall, who he talks to and constantly feeds despite warnings from Esther that the fish shouldn’t be fed. Essentially, it is a one-person show and though Felix talks with so many people on the phone, we never hear their voices- only his reaction to their wants and needs as he tries desperately to put together the production.

What we quickly discover is that Felix will go to any length to make this venture happen. We watch as he mollifies Johnnie Bledsoe, the star, who doesn’t want to play King Louis but seeks to have the play altered to include a child (played by him) and even eliminate King Louis from the tale. Felix tries to persuade the young playwright to rewrite the play. And he lies to everyone about the progress he is making. It is not one call after another, but three and four calls at a time.

While the mistakes in the title of the play refer to mistakes regarding the French Revolution, it is clear that there are a myriad of mistakes regarding the writing, the casting, the financing (which depends upon the sale of flocks of sheep in Arab lands being threatened by a revolutionary group) of the  production Felix is trying to mount. There is even a hint at a mistake Felix made regarding his daughter’s death. On top of that are the silly mistakes- Shakespeare made a mistake in not making his king the main character or the constant mistaking the name of Robespierre who Felix calls Pierre.

It is a very intense evening and it is challenging to follow all the calls that are on the many different phone lines coming in to the office, let alone the people Felix is putting on hold. It is funny for a while, but then becomes a bit overwhelming and tiring. There is a human element that is lacking in Wright’s play. He’s driving the story along one track when it could use more variation. We want to know more about Felix, about his family. We want to see not only his bravado but his angst.

Tony Braithwaite is masterful as Felix in the way he handles the barrage of phone calls and he has a superbly understated knack for handling the many comedic elements of the play. I can’t think of another actor who could pull off such a piece. But his acting wasn’t enough to carry the play for 75 minutes I just wish I could do what Felix is trying to do in the play with the young playwright- convince the author of “Mistakes were Made” to rework the play.

“Mistakes Were Made” by Craig Wright at Act II Playhouse, 56, E. Butler Ave., Ambler, PA 19002, 215-654-0200, www.act2.org. Thru April 16, 2023.

Eddie Carbone, an Italian-American, is a longshoreman, working at the docks  of Brooklyn in the 1950’s. He lives with his wife, Beatrice, and their orphaned 17-ear-old niece, Catherine. They are about to welcome Beatrice’s cousins who are coming to America from Italy, seeking work. They are illegal immigrants. That’s how Arthur Miller’s, “A View From the Bridge” opens. Before it ends, we will get a look at the view of the feelings of the five characters as they struggle with their confusing but powerful emotions.

            New Light Theatre is presenting the Miller classic in the intimate Black Box Theater at OperaDelaware Studios in Wilmington, Delaware. The theatre in the round brings us up close to the action where we can feel the pain of each character. Megan Bellwoar has assembled a fine ensemble led by John Jezior as Eddie Carbone.

            When we meet the Carbones in their home, they are arguing about whether or not Catherine, who is the best student in her class, should take the school principal’s recommendation to leave school a year early (she will still get her graduation certificate the next year) to take a job as an assistant secretary, that will pay her $50 per week. Eddie wants to protect her daughter and doesn’t want her working yet. Catherine wants to earn her own money and become a woman.

            Eddie also complains about the length of his niece’s new skirt, which he feels will attract the wrong sort of boys. All this comes into sharper focus when the cousins arrive. The older brother wants to work hard to get enough money to help his family and return to them in a few years. The younger one, Rodolpho, hopes to remain in the U.S. And when a romance seems to be developing between him and Catherine, Eddie sees it as a ploy to marry her to gain U.S. citizenship.

            We watch and we wonder- is Eddie’s concern for his niece that of a typical parent (he has no kids and has raised Catherine with his wife) as the child becomes independent, or is he jealous, even obsessed with her. Is Rodolpho truly in love with Catherine or is he using her.

            The play is introduced by Alfieri, who serves like a Greek chorus in classical plays, providing information but also commenting on the events as they unravel. He is also the lawyer who Eddie goes to for help. But Alfieri repeatedly tells Eddie he can do nothing.

            Therein lies a cornerstone of the Miller play- when to speak up and when to be silent. In the aftermath of the McCarthy hearings where many (including Miller’s friend Elia Kazan) named names of those who might have had Communists ties, we wonder whether Carbone will report to the FBI about the illegal immigrants to protect his daughter… Or would he be protecting himself.

            Jezior along with Elsa Kegelman who plays his daughter give the most riveting performances, but Trice Baldwin-Browns as his wife Beatrice and David Pica as Marco, the older brother Marco were also formidable in their supporting roles. There is angst. There is passion. There is power. New Light Theatre has brought it all to Delaware.

“A View From the Bridge” at New Light Theatre performed at OperaDelaware Studios, 4 S. Poplar St., Wilmington, De 19801, www.newlighttheatre.com  Thru March 26, 2023

“The Tempest,” written in 1611, is believed to be one of the last plays that William Shakespeare wrote alone. It takes place on a small island somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, after a storm, a tempest, shipwrecks a ship. We soon learn that the storm was created by Prospero, with his magical powers. He has been exiled with his daughter, Miranda, for many years from his Milan dukedom by his brother, Antonio, with the aid of Alonso, the King of Naples. They were among those on the ship which washed ashore.

            There are many stories to follow. Prospero seeks to be restored to his dukedom. Some want Prospero dead. There are plots to kill others. There is the budding romance between Prospero’s daughter and Ferdinand, son of Alonso.

            It’s a complex play with a complex plot. It’s not one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies, or histories, but a kind of tragicomedy and director Alex Burns has assembled a fine cast to pull it off successfully, without altering the original text. And he has it done with a team of designers who are outstanding. The masks created by the Barbaric Yawp Workshop and the spectacular costumes of Jane Casanave are powerful and beautiful!  As for the cast, they are outstanding.

            Lawrence Pressman heads the group as Prospero. A distinguished actor of stage and screen, he has appeared in so many films and tv series for over 50 years,  it would take pages to list them. He is the anchor around whom we learn of the other traitorous villains he must deal with. They are angry, they are drunk, they are desperate. They are larger than life. But Pressman’s Prospero, though he possesses supernatural powers, is most natural, most real.

            Four of the characters are wearing villainous, commedia dell’arte masks and play several roles. The power of their voices and their physicality, more than makes up for our not seeing the emotion on faces in Quintessence’s very intimate theater space. We hear and see how they feel.

            I cannot say enough about the costumes. They are worth the price of admission alone. Casanave has been doing costumes for Quintessence for several years, and I can’t imagine how she will do it better than what she has done for “The Tempest.” And with actors playing multiple roles, it must be quite a task when they step off stage and quickly don another costume.

            One of the simplest series of costumes was worn by Pat Moran, playing Ariel, the airy spirit who Prospero has invested with magical powers to do his bidding. It is a joy to watch him move about the simple raised stage in the theater in the round. He provides much of the comic relief in both his movement and his expressions (he does not wear a mask). Even his many unitards (full length leotards) make us smile- they are beautifully designed.  

            There is just one suggestion I would make to theater goers. It’s a long play. If you are not familiar with the story, particularly the opening scene after the shipwreck, I strongly recommend you read a summary of the play.  It will not spoil the experience. When I was in high school and in college, if I didn’t know the basic story of Shakespeare’s play which seemed like it was written in a different language,  I read a summary.

“The Tempest” at Quintessence Theatre, 7137 Germantown Ave., Phila, PA 19119, 215-987-4450. http://www.quintessencetheatre.org  Thru April 2, 2023.

            Thurgood Marshall was the 76^th associate justice appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States after the Court was created by the Constitution over 175 years before. He was also, the first African-American to serve there. His story of fighting to end racism, beginning with growing up in segregated Baltimore, Maryland, is the subject of this one-man play at People’s Light. It is a very good play about an extraordinary man.

            It begins with the elderly Marshall, limping with a cane, directly addressing us, the audience of the Howard University Law School, and telling of his giving 50 years to the law. But it also a history of racism in the Unites States.

We learn that he was born in 1908, the year that Jack Johnson became the first African-American heavyweight champion of the world. Sadly, his victory led to race riots and lynchings over the next year. The following year, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.

            Then, Marshall dispenses with the cane, stands up straight, and takes us through the racism he experienced. After graduating from the Colored High and Training School, he attended Lincoln College where one of his classmates was the poet, Langston Hughes. Upon graduating, he sought to attend the University of Maryland Law School, but was rejected because he was a Negro. It was 1930. The infamous Supreme Court 1896 decision in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case, which declared “separate but equal”- a legal separation of the races- to be the law of the land. It would remain so for another 24 years.

            Marshall attended Howard University to gain his law degree, and then spent the rest of his life fighting in the courts and overturning racist law after law. Playwright George Stevens, Jr. takes us through many of these cases. It is most interesting but at times a bit overwhelming, as we often feel we are not watching a play but listening to a lecture. Still, it is fascinating as we learn so much about what preceded the 1954 landmark case, Brown vs Board of Education.  I discovered it was actually argued twice, first in 1952, then again, after the Chief Justice of the Court died and was replaced by Earl Warren.

            Ironically, the last half hour, which is about Marshall’s appointment to the Court of Appeals by John F. Kennedy, his selection by Lyndon Johnson to be Solicitor General and then to the United States Supreme Court in 1967, seemed like an afterthought. I had been more interested in the information in the first hour and about Marshall’s family, about his real name, Thoroughgood and about his early struggles.

            The play was filled with information and I always enjoy learning when I see a play with historical significance. But it was presented without a sense of drama. They told us things that I would have preferred they showed me with more interaction between Marshall and the people he was talking to or with. I would have liked to see better the photos that were occasionally flashed on walls, but were distorted by the walls of the set. And since the play was not in a smaller, more intimate theater space, I would have appreciated if they’d miked Brian Marable, who gives a solid performance as Thurgood Marshall.

            Reviewing a play is often complicated. I loved so much about the play, but as a theater critic, I wanted a little more theater. “Thurgood” at People’s Light, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malverne, PA 19355, 610-644-3500,  peopleslight.org   Thru March 19, 2023

With a title like “Lifespan of a Fact,” I knew I had to see the latest production by Lantern Theater Company. There seemed to be so many possibilities. It turned out those possibilities or facts, were the fabrication used to enhance an essay that John D’Agata wrote for a magazine. And when fact-checker Jim Fingal is assigned to make sure that the information, slated to appear in the magazine is accurate, things begin to unravel. It’s a most interesting story that deals with fake news… or is it.

            D’Agata has written about a suicide of a young man, from the tower at the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas. In it are loads of details- the number of deaths in Vegas that day, the number of strip clubs that closed that week, claiming a woman was visiting from Mississippi when she was a Las Vegas resident. He has a thing for numbers and alters the facts so they fit into his esoteric vision. Often, he is telling half-truths. “The wrong facts get in the way,” he says at one point. We discover this because the magazine editor, Emily Penrose has selected Fingal,  an intern at the magazine to corroborate it all before it goes to press.

            Fingal is a Harvard grad who wants to rise in the publishing ranks. He is meticulous. He does more research than D’Agata. He interviews people. He checks the newspapers. He even flies out to Las Vegas. He questions the cantankerous D’Agata, then challenges him. D’Agata resents that a young kid who is challenging him. He tells him that facts are not pure. But Fingal does not accept the writer’s compromising truth for what he says is art. When he reports back to Penrose, she has a dilemma. She had a deadline and D’Agata’s story IS a powerful one. How much fact checking does she want?

            Most of the 90 minute play revolves around the arguments between the writer and the fact checker. It is a very interesting for a while. It is full on lots of one-line zingers. But it quickly gets tiresome for me. The play is an interesting analysis of the kind of liberty a writer has when writing, not fiction, but a factual essay. In fact, the production felt like a long essay itself.

Perhaps it would be an interesting one-act piece, I thought. But for it be a successful full length play, it needed more. Director Matt Pfeiffer has not given us that extra dimension, that it needed- feeling. What are the characters thinking as the scuffle? Ian Merriill Peakes did give us that in his portrayal of D’Agata, but Trevor William Fayle as Fingal, simply spit out line after line of his discoveries about the fraud. Even Joanna Liao’s Penrose could have shown us more angst in the awkward position she found herself.

The play has been successful in its many productions since it first appeared on Broadway in 2018. I would love to see it again with a deeper look into the characters.

“The Lifespan of a Fact” at Lantern Theater Co., St. Stephen’s Theater, 10^th & Ludlow Streets, Phila., PA 19107, 215-829-0395, www.lanterntheater.org  Thru March 5, 2023.

I recently received an invitation by a theater company in Camden, New Jersey, that I’d never heard of to see a play I’d never heard of. I was hesitant but also curious, even more so when I learned that the theater, Camden Repertory Theater performed in the living room of a row home. But upon reading about the play, “Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While A Bird Dies In A Gilded Cage,” and learning that it was originally produced in Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in 1977, I became intrigued. I wanted to see this rarely produced play. I made the trek into New Jersey and couldn’t have been more rewarded by this unusual play.

            There were only a dozen chairs along one wall of the house where the audience sat. In the back was a jazz band. They were there to play many the songs of and in the style of Charlie Parker, the great jazz sax saxophonist, composer, and band leader. Through the play, Parker sits on one end of the performance space with Pasha, his wealthy patroness who is devoted, even one might say obsessed with him. But she does take care of him. She is constantly begging him to impregnate with her. She also provides him with drugs, a habit he’s had all his adult life.

            Through the conversations with her, we learn of his despair, his frustrating life, despite being one of the greatest jazz musicians of all-time. But he can’t even enter clubs when he is not performing because he is Black.

            The play takes place on the day Charlie “Bird” Parker died in 1955, at the age of 34. And on the main part of the stage that day, we are in the Hide-a-Wee Home for Unwed Mothers. Four pregnant teens and a fifth, who just had a baby, reside there. They are all Charlie Parker fans. But music isn’t what’s on their minds. Their concern is what will they do with their babies!

            Each of the women describes the circumstances in which she got pregnant. From a one-night stand with a guy she met at a dance, to a  promiscuous girl who loves sex, to another who was raped, there is also wide range of the men who impregnated them. The bottom line is that none of those men are around- not even the one who fathered the child currently at the Home, though the girl, the mother of the baby awaits his arrival.

            These girls hate that women are categorized as whores or saints, depending on their sexuality. They talk about what love is to them. One of their fathers insists that his daughter give up the baby for adoption. They aren’t sure what to do. The nurse in charge is constantly reminding them that they must sign adoption papers. She is a devout Christian, but she too has her story.

            There are loud arguments among the girls. They squabble all the time, and as we are so close to them, we feel the power of their frustrations and anger. Charlie Parker is also struggling with Pasha as the scenes shift back and forth. What these girls and Parker have in common is the burning desire to be free.

            Playwright Aishah Rahman has created a slice… no slices of life that we don’t usually see. She was a foster child in Harlem herself. She has seen these lives and she brings it powerfully to us in this formidable play, seamlessly directed by Chynah Michele at Camden Repertory. If you’ve never been to Camden, now there is a reason to go!

“Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird in a Gilded Cage” at Camden Repertory Theater, 445 Mechanic St., Camden, NJ 08104,  856-438-8430  camdenrep.com   thru March 25, 2023